S1E04: Sound design in the video game industry with Frederic Poirier et Jean-Frédéric Vachon

[MUSIC PLAYING] This show is all about sound. Gia Vachan and Fred Poirier are coming to talk to us about sound design and have a blast in our new studios. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of "Crafting the Imaginary Into Play," a behavior interactive podcast. I'm Althouand Caillouette. I'm your host. And I'm, once again, with the producer of the show, Frico Zousseau. Hi, hi, hi. How are you doing, Frico? I'm good. How are you? Oh, I'm great. It's a beautiful-- not that beautiful day today, but it's been sunny the past few days. I think it feels good. Yeah, it puts me in a good spirit right now. Yes, same. Yeah, it feels like spring, pretty much. It does. Yeah. Snow is melting. Birds are singing. That's sad for you because you love snow, right? You love snowboarding. I do love snow. Yeah, you look-- I do. What's the life by the mountain when there's no snow on the mountain? Well, you do mountain biking. No, that's fine. I think that's right. Many other sports. Yeah. Hey, that's a great day, too. Another reason why I'm in such good spirits is that we're recording in a new studio right now. Oh, yes. And we love it. You say, oh, yes, like you don't know, but you're in the studio right now. I am. Yes. On these very comfortable chairs. Yes, I know. A great team that help us now. We know podcasts is going places. So we have a very professional setup right now. Great mics. Great table. Where to sit at. I feel like a celebrity. Yeah, celebrity. Yeah. I feel like Nick Cage. Oh, you do. I do. I'm pretty sure that's how he feels when he records a movie or has roles in our games. Probably a little. Same thing but different. Same thing. Yeah. Let's agree on that. We have a great show today. We do. For the first time of our very long history, we have two guests at the same time, which was exciting for us. It's super interesting. Yes. And these two guys are named Jean-Friedrich Vachon and Friedrich Poirier. Jean-Fried is a senior director of audio and merchandising. And Friedrich Poirier is audio director, mostly undead by daylight. And sound design is so interesting to me anyway. I don't know how you were opinion about it, but it's such a big world and we don't know much about it and we don't think about it often. If you don't stop to think about it, it's always like, oh, graphics or this or that. But sound design is very important for video games. And we had two great guys, two experts on the subject that came to the show to talk about it for 45 minutes with us. Yeah, it was so interesting. Imagine a video game without sound. It would be only Charlie Chaplin in it. That would suck. I mean, no offense, Charlie Chaplin, but you know, you know, video games would be a bit boring, I guess. Yeah. So they shared with us cool stories, what they did, where they come from, anecdotes on projects they worked on. Yeah, pretty funny stuff. Funny stuff. Yeah, pretty funny stuff too. Yeah, a bit of cool stuff. Yeah, but you know, that's a life of sound designers. Yeah. Are you ready for us to start that interview? I am. Let's do it, Friko. Let's do it. Hey guys, thank you for being here today. Thanks for having us. Yeah, wasn't too hard to get here. We've studios, new plays, no problem. No, that's not. I'm happy. I'm happy to have you here. It's very nice. And we talked about it in the introduction, but Jean-Francée de Hague-Vachon, senior director of audio and merchandising. What's that? What's merchandising? It's all the swag, basically, no, the statues like this. We can see some swag on the head. Like this. Yeah. So that's part of my job. Oh, nice. And yeah, we were seeing him. The model right now with the swag on his back, Fred Poirier, who's audio director. Mostly I think on Dead by Daylight, is that true? Other director on Dead by Daylight. That's great. Specifically. And you're just, I can everything. Everything audio. All the out of behavior. Yes. That's nice. So, where are you guys from? Fred, where are you from? I don't know why I have that weird fixation of knowing where people are born and grew up and everything, and I want to know that about you guys. I think you just want to guess our security question. I'm a hacker. So Fred, where are you from? I'm from South Quebec. I'm from Dead for Mines. Dead for Mines. I was best of the mines. Yes. My God. Are you healthy? It's not very healthy to be around that's best of us that much. Yeah. And what's your background? Because now you're sound engineer or you've been a sound engineer and a director. Did you study to become? Yeah. Exactly. I left my town to come to Montreal. I came to Montreal. I came to engineering. Specifically to go to a private school in some design. And I got graduated. And I'm in Montreal since then. Did you start working straight away after school? No. You sound design? No. I work as a programmer for a security company like Galda. Galda? Did you have a gun and everything? No. I had to pass through a couple of security doors. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, before getting to my desk. Yes, yes, it was eye security level. But and I work as a contractor during years before I was doing seven years. Seven years. And so seven years and no sound design and that. No, I did. Some project on my own, but nothing that no company, no contract, nothing. It was just for fun on my own. But after seven years, I quit the programming job and I tried to focus to work on what I am passionate about. So I contacted my school and I started from zero. Okay, I will send CVs, curriculum, and I will start over the research. And I found that my school put me in contact with GF really for an internship. And then I started as an integrator. Sound integrator. You started integrator. Indiana Jones and the staff of Kings. Oh, I think you like Indiana Jones quite a bit, right? I'm once a bit happy to work on that game. Oh, yeah, I didn't know before I started. So the first meeting I got with GF, I will always remember it. That moment was really weird. Was weird, but I don't remember it. Oh, you don't. Does that hurt? It meant more to you. And Jofred, what's your background? So I studied music at university. I've got a bachelor's degree in classical music. Okay. And I did use to the instrument in particular. Yeah, guitar. Guitar. Oh, still playing. Yeah. That's nice. I'd like to hear you. Maybe we can do it later. I don't know. I do a little jam here at the studio. I'll send you some links. Okay. Don't ask me to sing. No, okay. So during my university years, one thing that was clear in my head is that I didn't want to be a teacher. Okay. So three months after graduating, I found a job as a teacher. So that didn't last long. That's a result. And so I taught at a music school for six years. I got to a point where I'm like, you know, this isn't what I'm going to do for my entire life. What could I be doing? And my dad found this ad in the paper. He said, it's weird. You're looking for somebody to do sound effects for video games. And I'm like, really? That sounds interesting. Your dad had your back. Yeah, my back. Yeah, no reason to look through the ads. So I'm guessing he was, you know, taking pity on me. I shouldn't think. It was, but getting worried about your career. But thanks dad. That was a good move. So I started working on a demo. Or basically I took one minute of film that I put, you know, I redid the sound for was so long ago that it was on VHS. I'll sink to a computer. That was complicated. So I did this and cutting tape. No, no. No, the sound design was mixed on the computer. Sink to the video. I didn't know there were computers when you were young. Where was I? Oh, yeah. That mixed tape. I wanted to do the music also to redo the music, but I took a piece from the movie from Roshowit Love, the James Bond movie, which I'll agree. So one of my favorite movies of all time. And I love the music and that scene so much. It's the gypsy cam fight that I could not figure out what else to put there. So I was stuck. I only had the sound effects. Turns out the ad only mentioned sound effects. No mention of music. So I'm like, well, I can send it as is. So I send that in, got an interview, was hired and started working as a sound designer. Back when behavior was still in Quebec City. OK. So you're one of the first few employees that were working with behavior back then. Behavior had been active for seven years back then. So I wouldn't say one of the few. OK. I know the first, but we were 30 people back then. So the behavior was very, very different. So you've been there the whole time? Pretty much. 24 years. That's nice. How long have you been at behavior? Fred? 15 years, okay, so I'm not too rough as a boss. No, no, no, you've been his bus the whole time, too. Wow, that's a nice relationship. You guys have going right now. - Yeah. There's a lot of members of the audio team that have been there for 15 plus years or 10 years and everything. And we're all friends. It's not like we hang out every Friday, but we see each other and we do stuff. And I think we got that going. It's not just colleagues, it's really a friendship that appeared over the years. - Yeah, it's a super fun mood in the department. Yes, it's a, there's no big competition or a bad feeling or a goes, no, it's really fun. We're sharing a lot and yeah. - I think the disparities were all trying to lift up the others. - Yeah. - So it's not, no, I got, you know, I was better than you or my project did better than you say, "Hey, we did this, maybe you can benefit from this." And vice versa. And I think it's a great spirit of sharing. - Very positive, yeah. Yeah. And I know that overall you're both directors. You have people underneath you. And you, so you're not day to day in sound engineer. Are you in sound engineer every day? Do you sound and renewing? - For me, because I was a sound designer during years. And I started by daylight alone with GF as my audio director. And we grown and now we, I have a team, I have a lead. So my lead and my team take care of the production. And I review assets, I review the audio for the game. - For your job, basically, is people send you their work and you have to review what they're doing and make sure that everything's okay for a dead by daylight. - If the direction is okay, if we still, if we maintain the pillars of the game. - Yeah. - And if my job is larger, it's also more about contracts and the contact with third parties, companies. And so I don't have time to work on the production. - Yeah. - So yeah, you know when you do sounds for a killer or something, you want to be concentrated. You want to do it. - Have a workflow and be, yeah. - You have to think to it and work. - Exactly. So I don't have the chance to be like that anymore. - And that's a tough switch to make. - Yeah. - You had a tough time. And I know I had a tough time when I stopped doing production also. - It's another job altogether, basically. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Like managing people now. - Yeah, I have my lead at manage people to do. So I don't want to say that I'm a manager, but I'm working on the pre-production. I made things happen. I have to bring ideas. And like I said, I'm there for the direction to maintain the pillars of the game. And also to review the sounds for the sound designer and bring them to involve, I will say that, to be better. - Yeah. - And so I pushed them to push themself to do better. - And what's the difference with your day-to-day work, GF? - We're actually somewhat similar on that level, except my feel of action is the entire company. So that by the light is the largest project that we got. We got four sound designers, one lead and Fred over this. Most of the projects have maybe one director, two sound designers, or even sometimes just one sound designer. So these projects will require a little bit more management out of me. But Fred was saying, his job is to make sure that we push the quality, we make it as good as possible. That's also what I do across the entire company. So I make sure that everything that goes out as a level of quality of audio that I'm satisfied with and that is up to the expectations that we got. So my job is to push them to always do better. - Yeah. - And to do basically to make sure that you can do their job without any friction. Always say-- - The roadblocks, you're just trying to get-- - Exactly. - So that they can be in a state of mind where they can create and-- - Exactly. - Have work with us. - And not have to worry, oh, I need to go to this person and negotiate more time. And that's my job, that's what I do. And the way I like to describe it is, when you get somebody who's gonna talk about his car, they're gonna say, look at the color, look at the engine, or the hood and show you the engine. No one ever talks about the oil, but without oil, everything blows up. My job is the oil. It's not sexy, no one's gonna brag about that oil. - Some people like oil in a sexy life, but you know what, I'm not-- (laughing) - Motor oil. - Oh, okay, sorry, maybe we have to be precise, yeah. - I don't drive that feature of my boss, I'm bubble over. (laughing) - But we've been talking about sound design, like a little bit from since we started the interview, but I'd like to go deep into the subject right now, 'cause how does it start? How do you make sound design for a game? Where do you start? Do sometimes projects start with the sound design or do people create the whole game and then add sound design to it? When do you come in play in the game? Where do you start to work? - We like to start at the beginning. We like to be involved from the beginning because we could affect the gameplay. We could affect the objects, the map itself. So it's important that we can bring our creativity from scratch and that was the case for Dead by Dead Light. By example, we-- - Yeah, when you started the game was just blocks. They were trying out the multiplayer aspect by having split screen, but you can't play Dead by Dead Light if you know what the other. So they put a cardboard sheet between the middle of the screen so that two people could play on the same TV without seeing each other. And that's the first proof of concept that Fred came up with. - Oh, really? - Yeah, so you know when you start at the prototype level, you could bring ideas that will change the game. So it's like the Earth beat in Dead by Dead Light, the distance to bring the idea to, oh, we need music for this, for this, for this. So that help to do a design document. - Yeah. - That bring the vision that we will need to achieve for the game. - And I think by being there from the start, the design team was able to see, oh, we can use audio to give a lot of cues. - Two players. - Yeah, they brought in an audio designer six months into the project. They would have figured out different solutions by then and the audio would have just come in. Well, you know, I'm just gonna make it bang when you do this and-- - They're not just executing what the other part of the team wants you to do. You're also part of the creative process. And yeah, that's nice. - And the best projects, the best games will have audio as part of the design. They'll use this as, you know, for cues, for information, for feedback. The worst thing you can do is just, here's the game, puts some sound on it. It's like finishing a cake and saying, put the icing on it, you know, it's not gonna change what the cake is. - Talking about cake, I worked in a restaurant industry for many years and, you know, chefs always do their menus and then some of the days add the wines around the food. But there's now restaurants and chefs that do the opposite. They start with the wines and then they put the food around the wines. Has it ever happened to you that you created something, you had an idea for a sound design and then a game comes around sound design, is it something that's being made right now? - I think that's all for that. The chase and that by daylight, I mean, the chase was there, but it was not named or not part of the gameplay yet. And in my design, I had four layers of music for the distance with the killer. And then I feel that the feedback to the player was not clear because it was like, one layer didn't help at all. So I just take the last layer and I said, oh, maybe we can put that on the chase. So I want to see the game designer at that time and I try to figure out with him, we figure out some rules to start the music when we get in the chase. What is the condition for the chase? And so that kind of collaboration is really interesting because we bring something live like that. - So it started from sound design pretty much. The idea started that. - Yes and no, that I mean, both collaboration and that. - Both then came together organically and then I think when there's this conversation between design and audio, that's when the magic happens, I think. - And you were talking about layers. Can you explain what layers are? 'Cause I'm completely new in sound design. I am not sure that they're too much technical. - No, that's why we like that. - I just need a lot of explaining because I'm not super fast. But no, I don't know about sound design. So what's the layers now? - So if you have a music track, you've got a lot of different instruments. So in games what we do is we'll split them in layers. So you can have a layer that's the percussion. - Yeah. - Then you have a layer that's maybe additional percussion. - Okay. - Another layer is gonna have the bass and the rhythm instruments. - It's like making a song basically, right? - Yeah, exactly. - If you have a layer that's gonna be the solo instrument, let's say. So you can have a situation where you start the game and you start with the percussion track and the rhythm instruments and that's it. So it's basically just, you know, comping in just a nice little background. Then something happens and you put on the layer that has more percussion. So suddenly it's busier and so you're telling the players something happened and it's, you know, you should pay attention because something-- - That's down. - And then maybe if you know they're getting into a fight, you're gonna kick in the layer with the solo instruments and then it's this strime fence. It's like, ah, nice. Now I got the melody and you feel you're into it. It's like, you know, when Superman starts to fly and you get that John Williams music going and it's like, oh yeah, that's awesome. So that's what, when we're talking about layers, that's what we're talking about. - Okay, 'cause that makes me think, you know, to me it sounds very complicated and it sounds like I would never be able to do that. But obviously there's people that can do that but what makes a good audio engineer or sound designer? - What qualities do you look for? What, yeah, how good is that? - There's many qualities that this is. - 'Cause you don't necessarily need a music background, I guess, there's not all musicians that do that, right? You don't have a music background, do you? - No, I know. - Yeah, I was really interesting in sound design, not music. I did some music for fun, but I mean, I send that for my internship and I'm so sure. I'm not proud of that. - Your music, there's some songs that you gave? - Oh yeah, well, you got the job, so they've got the job work. (laughing) - But yeah, some skills. There's many difference between sound designers. Some are really good to editing, some are really good in mixing, some are really good in capturing sounds with mics. So it's a mix of everything like that. So it could be also a big creative or a big technical, because sometimes sound sound designers are really good to make the mechanics and the integration. So the trigger in game that will play the sound, and how we do the trigger. But on the other side, some sound designers are really, really good with sounds. And you know the-- - At the sphere, - You know the pedals for the guitar, metal, emigrant together? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Imagine that you have-- - A lot of guitars and the pedals, and you play with that, and you make a new sounds from it. So that's how digitally sometimes sound designer work. - And do you also assign, 'cause we were talking about that the other day, but do you have like specific castings for your employees? Do you know some projects, oh, that guy is gonna be great at doing this, or that girl's gonna be amazing? - So we try as much as possible to put people on projects where they'll, be able to shine. So I have affinity with the type of game. I have affinity with the requirements. It's not always possible. Sometimes you're the one whose project is finishing and there's another project that's starting, and it's not a perfect match, but you gotta make it work. But as much as possible, we try to figure things out. And Fred mentioned the technical aspects and the artistic aspects. And traditionally it's something we see as the yin and a yang. You're either one or you're the other. But sound designers in game, especially the team that we have, we found people that are a good mix of both. And it's really rare, but people who are at ease making systems and trying to figure out triggers and things like this, as they are as to create sounds. And the artistic aspect, it's a good sound designer, doesn't just listen to something and say, oh, I could put that when I have the same thing in the game. They listen to something and like, you know what, if I pitch it down, run it through a flanger and put it a little bit of distortion, it could sound like a spaceship. Or what not. So it's this mentality of hearing sounds around you and trying to figure out how you can manipulate them, how you can play them. Play with them, I should say. So that's, they're a little. - It's funny 'cause last summer, I got an idea for a video game sound. You want me to tell you what it is? - I'll do it. - I'll do it. - I'll do it. - I'll do it. - It's a, do you know how a cardinal, the birds, like the red birds, how they sound? They sound like lasers. And I thought, maybe that's the start of a new video game, but we can start with like a sci-fi game that have birds as superheroes and we could use birds, sounds as weapons and everything. But, you know, I give it to you if you want to do something with that. - You might be on to something. - Yeah. But because you said that, you have to take sounds and modify them and make them go through hoops and everything to make them sound a little different. That's pretty nice, right? Do you go out and record like an outside and everywhere? With Mike, sound, do you get new sounds? Is there like a bank or anything? - We have sound banks, sound libraries, the way we can pull sounds. Sometimes the sound is not super easy to get. If you need a Boeing taking off, you might as well put it off of the sound bank. But one thing that I always ask of our sound designers is never take the sound as is from the libraries and put it in the game. - Always modify it. - 'Cause I've heard that, the same sounds in several occasions and movies. I could hear sounds from games I was playing when I was a kid. I want to say what they did make a big effort now. It's the same sound I heard in '98. And now it's in a movie in 2020. - I remember when I started a behavior and we had all these CDs of sound effect and I started listening to all of them to try to familiarize myself with what was available. And I kept saying, "Hey, this is sound effects from this. This is sound effects from dad. This is from different." You know, that sucks. I remember watching TV with my wife and there's a commercial that comes on and I'm like, "Hey, that sound is from Sound Ideas 632." (laughing) - You know the exact name in the folder. - So it's like, "Yeah, that's bad a little bit." But you know, you were talking about your example of the cardinal and it sounds like a laser. We've all seen Star Wars. The sound design on this was made by the amazing Ben Bird. And there's stuff like the sound of the gun shooting. - Yeah, iconic sound now. - You know, when you get to like a steel pillar and there's a wire that's really toned to try to keep it up. And he went to one with a hammer and he just hit on it. - That's the way it was. - And then he spread it up. - Okay. - And it became the proom that he all know. - That's the nice, yeah. - The tie fighters are elephant brain. If you listen to the passby for the million followers. - Sorry, you said it's an elephant. - Yeah. - Like it. - Yeah. - That's nice. - I didn't know that. - But manipulated. - So I am onto something with my bird sound. - Anytime there's a passby on the million Falcon, you know, there's the roar of the machine. There's a lion's roar. - Really? - That's crazy. I didn't know that. - You're gonna hear the lion every time now. - Yeah, I know. Maybe you use crude Star Wars for me now. - Yeah. - You're rude. - That's impossible. - But it's cool to talk about that because I was wondering preparing the interview. How do you guys get your inspiration to create new sounds? Because I know it's on Dead by Daylight, for example. We have a lot of chapters every year and stuff. Sometimes, you know, we have a lot to create and a lot to put in. And it comes, next chapter comes in pre-fast. And you have to have new ideas for sounds or new killers or new survivors. - We have some original killers and we have also a licensed killer. - Yeah. - So in case of original killers, yes. We need to be creative and we need to get inspired by some types of-- - Creative team came with visual and concept that they're inspiring. - Yeah. - It's really good. So it's not that hard to figure something out, but sometimes we need to, you know, explore. And sometimes we can find, we want to do a sounds and particularly, but we found something else. And then we keep it for, oh yeah, this is interesting. So I keep it for later and I finish my sound. So there's an exploration to do. Are you a horror fan? Do you have to listen to movies or-- - I hope I know. (laughing) - I was a real fan of horror games. - Yeah. - And I had to watch a lot of movies. - Yeah, I didn't. - Yeah, he did. That was scary, honestly. - The amount of movies he watched. - I love horror films. I love horror movie soundtracks. He listened to so much. I was like, dude, are you okay? (laughing) - He got scary in real life. But that's good for that. I guess that helps you for sound creation. - And the thing that was amazing, he would come away and say, I listen to this movie, I watch this movie, this movie, and this movie. And I really like what they're doing with the bass. I'm like, what do you mean what they're doing with the bass? No, I mean, you come in, yeah, they're using this for this. And they're, you know, so he came out with all these elements, these not rules, but almost tricks that he just compiled. And over the course of the production, he would go back to that. It's like, oh, I can do this to evoke that feeling or I could go back to this. - Yeah. - So it's never ripping off what that other movie did, but it's just taking inspiration and folding it into the Dead by Daylight recipe. - And now it became the bassist, like the bass line of Dead by Daylight pretty much. - Yeah, get up. It's a little bit more complicated because at some point we have some key point. I can say that we had to not change it, but influence us in some time. I mean, when we did Stranger Things, the mix of Stranger Things is 80s, but more than. So we had to adapt a little bit to fit that in the game. But from the beginning, my research was to get not something in common, but you know, we, I want to do sound design, like the bass of the sound design, to be compatible with every hour. - Okay. - So it was, I didn't want to be like, identity, yeah. - It couldn't be as, as your cut as, for example, you get Friday the 13 and you got like, "Kiki mama mama." And it's this thing and it's sort of the only thing. the only thing that drives it, we didn't want to have something like this. It needed to be flexible in being adaptable. So that's fixed ability was super important for me. And I didn't know at that time that we were going to a nine years of DLCs. Yeah, we're supposed to be in quick project, right? Did by daylight? I think at some point it was a small project. It was not the biggest project at that time, so for me, I'd be heavier. And yeah, and I mean, the first DLC was the All-Win. Yes, and we were like so proud and it was like an Ashif man. I love Halloween. Yeah, we're proud of it. To do Halloween or in the end of Jones when you got that behavior. Oh, that's a good question. It's hard. I'm not going to make you choose. Is sound design different, whether you have original killers or licenses that come into the game? Is it easier? Is it harder to do original or the opposite? We learn a lot about, we were maybe more, I don't know. We feel that the license killer was really important to learn how to deal with the license and how to make the things correctly. I mean, you have limits with licenses? There are politics involved, you know. You've got someone whose job is to make sure that we respect the license, but what that means is their version of it. So sometimes we feel we've respected the license, we've been faithful to them, but they don't feel that we don't like this or sometimes they'll come up with rules, it's like this character cannot do this because it evokes this or that. And so you're sometimes sidestep by the request. We learn how to process that creative process, we learn how to improve it two years and at the beginning we put more importance in license content, but we did good content, original content too. And the players was really happy with them, with the killers and the original killers. And now I feel that we achieve a kind of process that we are, we have the same process for both. Okay. And because I have a team, it's really easier to deal like that. So it's like the license are important to approve and to say that for them it's really important that they approve the course. It's their baby. So I can't do what we want. And often there's a lot of, you know, it's dead by daylight. It's not the license game. So we have to find a way to took some sounds from the game of the movie and put that on the baby gameplay. So we have to make everyone happy. Make everyone happy. So it's the same for like alien. We want to respect the sounds of the alien itself. And alien as a franchise has millions of fans. So they, I'm pretty sure they expect to have the real sounds in it and the sounds that respect the respect that what they heard in the movies. But we know alien. But they are the expert there. So I like to have the discussion to bring their vision in our game too. So that kind of discussion, that kind of change is really nice. It's really great for for bring quality. Because it's a franchise, you have things that you have to respect. But when you're creating new characters and dead by daylight, how's the whole process going? How do you create a personality for killers? Is it the rest of the team that creates, that has an idea where they want to go with the character? We have a couple characters on the shells here and the clown and everything. And the trooper. Yeah. So how do they start like the clown behind you? I think you have like a, you made the sounds for the clown. Yes. Yes. Yes. How does it, how does it, I have a story for each killer. I write. I can't start. But how does it work when you're creating a new character like the clown like that? And yeah, the creative, David Rechord, that is our creative director, is it brings the concept, the main concept. And there was also the narrative team that developed the lore of the killer, the characters. So it's a collaboration from there. So we, I work with the artistic director, work with the animator. And we bring something alive. Why I said the animators? Because also the movement of the killer is the, it could be like really important to know if it's moving fast, moving weird, moving, like also the alien was quadruped. Oh, yeah. So it was the first time that we tried that quadruped movement and, and for some reason. Did you record a horse and then you switched the sound to make it sound a bit like? No. But we had to calibrate the weight a lot. Yeah, because it was all too tough, not enough tough. So we need to come back and put more weight on the alien. Yeah, it was, it was not easy, but it was really interesting to do. It was our first quadruped experience. So each killer has his challenge. Yeah, really. And you got to be careful because you know, if we go back to that example of, you know, trying to gauge the weight of the xenomorph, audio can, can sell the concept. It can also make it fail. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, if we leave footsteps that make you think that this is a very light being. That's seven-year-old kid. Yeah. That it just doesn't work. It's not as scary. You know, if something, something is really large or really massive, then you got to have the footsteps that go with it. Everything's got to tell you that this is a massive creature or, or being. So it's very important to get that right. Sometimes it's too right. I remember the story. It's scary because you're too fast because you're nail it too fast. It's too efficient. Let me get that. That's got a good story. Oh, yeah. The plague, I did, the plague is a pretrus that is, she's sick and she's like vomit on survivors. And so I did the sound of the vomit and it was really effective. So the cue was. You were the one who did the sounds. You sound. Oh, and can you try it? Oh, I don't want to. Oh, you can't. You don't want to do that? Actually, it was rust out the entire QE team, so you don't want it to do this. Yeah. So actually the QE teams did a kind of gentle petition to force me to turn down the sounds because they get sick, like, playing, testing the game. So I did trip-ass. I was proud. I was so proud. Because it worked. I mean, it's 100% effective sounds. You're sick playing the game. Come on. You go back home after the day you're days working. I'm getting paid doing puke sounds. But then you got to see it also. If the QE is getting grossed out and don't want to play the character, the players won't want to play the character. So you got to make sure that you're never making the character, you know, unplayable for a long period of time. Do you have other funny stories like that? Recording? I don't know if you've, did you, I guess, starting your career, you had to be in record boots with actors or doing sounds? Do you have any funny stories or things that comes to mind? Well, there's always funny stories about doing field recording. But there's one that comes to mind is when we did the game Monster House based on the animated movie. And in this movie, you got a bunch of kids who take the house next door as a live. They go in and they're armed with water pistols. This being a video game, the water pistols are, you know, big and you can upgrade them and make them even more powerful. So I was like, how am I going to do this? You start looking through the sound effects libraries and, you know, nobody's thought of putting water guns in there. So I went to Doys Arrest and I bought the biggest water pistol that I could find and I expense it. So I went home and I went outside and I loaded it up. I had a microphone on a stand. You're careful not to put water on the microphone. I started pumping this thing and it was the most boring sound I'd ever heard in my life. Basically, as big as it was, it was more air than anything. So I'm like, oh, what the, how am I going to do? So I went and I got the garden hose and I had an old garden hose that was all, you know, I never take the time to, you know, loop it properly when I put it away. So it had all these fold in it and when you turn on the water, you know, you'd get these air pockets. So you get, so I recorded all of this, chopped it off in little bits and that was the basis of the water guns in Monster House. Really, that's nice. Because you hear stories sometimes what I heard stories of people doing sound effects in movies with cabbage and salad and anything like that. Yeah. So it's almost like that, right? You have to figure out how to make something that a sound that we're used to make it sound cooler and to switch it a little bit because you're not going to get real powerful pistol sounds at Toys of Russ, I guess. Yeah. And the funniest thing about doing, you know, the vegetables, the salaries and the melons and everything is having the producer come to you is like, why is your sound design are expensive? Are they groceries? Are we paying them? It's like, it's not their groceries. It's sound, you know, recorded. - It's blood, it's bones. - Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, that's another fun you think to buy. There are growth for inexpensive pile of bones and blood. (laughing) Do you have, and I'm sure there's gonna be people listening to this interview that are interested to become sound engineers and start in the business. Do you have any tips or advice for people start when they start their career? How do you get in? - Well, these days, I think it's a lot easier than when I started, because now you've got access to so much stuff. We were talking about doing the implementation. You got sound engines like wise or FMAW that are readily available, that you can download, you can learn, they've got classes online, that you can enroll, you can get certified in wise. You got no reason not to start building stuff, building your skillset. There are schools, like the one Fred went to, there are tons of schools that will teach you this also. Creative aspect, you gotta, we've been talking about sound design, you gotta have that mindset. You gotta be making sounds, recording stuff, manipulating them, putting them into wise into sound banks and trying to figure out how you can put some variety and interactivity in those, and then you gotta build your portfolio. So a lot of people say, "Well, I'm gonna build a portfolio if I don't work in a game, you don't have to work on a game." No, do a project in wise, send a project, or even better, do a screen capture, screen recording while you're going through and do a little bit of narration as to, I created these footsteps sounds by recording my sister on walking on gravel and running shoes and then it moves and everything, whatever it is, you just explain your process. - I think there's a sound engineer now that works that behavior that didn't work on a game and he did like in a field something that you talked to me about the other day. Like he was not working on the game. - The demo was seen from a movie and it was a guy standing in a field. I gotta say, to any prospective sound designer listening to this, enough with the action shots. The shootouts, the explosions, the car wrecks, I don't care. - I guess it's harder to make something that subtle and that's more work. - Exactly, because you just put, you know, you're just showing me that you can put a sound effects of a gunshot and put it at the right moment. But to me, those are the little details that shows me that you still have some learning to do as to figure out the role of sound in, first in real life, but the role of sound in a visual medium. - Yeah. - So anything like this, so the guy who sent me the other demo was a guy in a field and I was drawn in. You hear the grass moving the wind, the wind and everything and you know, the sound in the distance and all that. - Oh, now that takes skill to really draw me into this scene. So you gotta be creative and you can't just go for the gunshots and the big action trailer and then I read it all the sounds. I was like, okay. (laughing) You know, this is the 24th call of duty trailer redo that I received in the last week, so thank you. - Hey, Masuka. - Also, it could be based on what project you apply. If it's an horror game, don't send me a video of shooting. - Yeah. - I don't have guns. - Yeah. - So I don't care. - If we advertise that it's dead by daylight. - You always know what project you're gonna be working on if you apply. - It could be confidential. - Yeah. - But now for dead by daylight, we come out and say, this is for dead by daylight. - But that's my out of trick. - For a tip for a trick trick trick. - Yeah, advice, yeah. - For some trick or tricks. (laughing) - But play the game that you apply to. It's so important. - If you don't like it and you don't want to work for it. - Yeah. - You will know. But it's important that you may have an opinion, you may have, you know, you may try to understand what is the sounds design. And then when you are in the interview, you can show us that you understand a bit of the sound design of the game. You can know characters, you know, that it's bring us, I mean, it's hard to know if someone is really involved in the project. - Yeah, you must say that. - Oh no, I don't know. I watch a video and it's okay. It's okay. - I don't feel that it's really passionate. - Yeah. - And that he wants to come work for the studio where he applies or something. - And for me, the passion and the collaboration is too big value for me. It's really important. You need to, if it's passion, if it's your passion, you have fun working. So it's, we need that. We need to have that fun environment that everyone is passionate about, audio and want to do a deal, learn more and bring more ideas than the, yeah. - Guys, if you're listening, just take notes. (laughing) Fred Poirier and Joe Fred Vachon. - Thank you very much for the interview. - The interview was a nice time. - Thanks for having us. - Nice time was great, right? - And we had a fun time. We had a blast. Thank you so much. - Thanks to you, my pleasure. (upbeat music) (electronic beeping)